Course design and learning outcomes

Part 1:  Understanding sustainability and collapse

The questions we consider at the beginning of our course provide the foundation for our study of collapse and sustainability now and in the past.  These questions include:  What is sustainability? Sustainability of what, for whom? What is at stake? What is collapse? What factors/conditions contribute to sustainability and collapse? 
LEARNING OUTCOMES
After completing this section, you should be able to: 
  • Define and critically evaluate the concept of “sustainability” and "collapse" from multiple disciplinary perspectives in order to understand and engage in informed discussions (beyond the classroom) and actions (in your life) that influence socio-environmental sustainability.  
  • Define the concept of resilience of socio-ecological systems to: (1) understand and evaluate how some policy makers and scientists are investigating and promoting solutions to the problem of sustainability; and, (2) recognize and use some new concepts to address sustainability issues now and in the past (e.g., adaptive management).
  • ​Identify the value of a long-term perspective on current sustainability problems
ACTIVITIES & METHODS OF ASSESSMENT
Part 2: Applying the comparative method to investigate the "initial conditions" of collapse and sustainability

In this section of the course we investigate archaeologically-known peoples for insights about sustainability and collapse.  These case studies will inform your understanding of collapse and sustainability and the capacity of the past to inform the present. 
LEARNING OUTCOMES
After completing this section, you should be able to: 
  • Understand the value and application of systematic comparison studies to identify influential (causal?) variables of complex social-ecological phenomena 
  • Design comparative research on collapse with attention to plausible "mechanisms" 
  • Identify the key causal variables and interactive processes involved in social collapse, decline, and transformation in [some places at some times] the past. 
  • Speak and think critically about the key variables and initial conditions likely associated with collapse and sustainability in the past
  • Describe with some depth select groups that lived in the ancient North American Southwest
ACTIVITIES & METHODS OF ASSESSMENT
Part 3:  Generate results that provide insights into sustainability and collapse
LEARNING OUTCOMES
After completing this course, you should be able to: 
  • Design cross-case comparative studies and more effectively develop research designs that use quantitative data (indicators of human and social behavior)
  • Describe how archaeology and long-term studies of human-environment interactions can be used to inform modern sustainability studies 
  • Critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of using archaeologically informed case studies and long-term studies of human-environment interactions to inform modern sustainability studies. 
  • More effectively work in an interdisciplinary team to address a current sustainability problem
  • Accurately use new terms/concepts in professional settings (e.g., resilience, complex adaptive systems, socioecological systems)
  • Evaluate popular narratives and "just-so" stories that attempt to deliver "lessons" from the past
ACTIVITIES & METHODS OF ASSESSMENT
  • Complete a research paper synthesizing the results of our efforts.
  • Key Concepts Quiz
  • Citations Quiz
  • SW in Space and Time Quiz